The U.S. General Services Administration has awarded Entrust Inc. a four-year, $4.5 million contract to continue providing hosted PKI services and digital certificates as the security infrastructure for HSPD-12 initiatives. An incumbent in the re-compete proposal, Entrust has provided managed PKI solutions and services for the GSA’s credentialing program since 2007.

Distributed through the GSA’s USAccess program, Entrust provides authenticated credentials to federal employees and contractors at more than 90 government agencies. While specific uses vary, most leverage the smart card-based credentials, coupled with PKI digital certificates, for physical access to secure government facilities and logical access to protected desktops and networks.

In 2007, as part of a six-member team, Entrust Inc. was subcontracted a portion of the GSA’s $66.3 million contract, which was then awarded to Texas-based Electronic Data Systems–now HP Enterprise Solutions–to lead the HSPD-12 managed-service offering. Entrust’s new contract is directly from the GSA, adding more flexibility to the services provided to the U.S. government.

Entrust now provides PIV services to federal employees and contractors and PIV-I certificates to organizations who want their certificates trusted by the federal government. In addition to user certificates, the new contract enables Entrust to provide machine and device certificates to the federal government, contractors and business partners.

Entrust Managed Services PKI provides digital certificates to the federal government under the Shared Service Provider program. Entrust Managed Services PKI is designed to meet U.S. Federal Common Policy and standards requirements.

The PKI framework automates the management of digital certificates that are used by individuals, applications and devices. This helps enable security services such as strong authentication, integrity of digitally signed data, physical access to buildings and facilities, and the protection of encrypted data to an organization using public-key cryptography.

The Shared Service Provider program was established under the Federal Identity Credentialing Committee (FICC) and Federal PKI Policy Authority to give U.S. federal departments and agencies a method to access PKI services while leveraging previous government investments.